


yellow

by wortfee



Category: Football RPF
Genre: AU, Angst, Character Death, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Sad Ending, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 12:12:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5496644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wortfee/pseuds/wortfee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yellow is warm colour, a happy colour. </p><p>Now yellow is also the colour of death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	yellow

**Author's Note:**

> In an AU in which there is a disease called "Hanahaki Disease" that makes the patient cough up flowers when they suffer from unrequited love, there's no death that is more cruel than coughing up flowers that have root in your lungs. The only way to heal the disease is a surgery that (somehow lol) removes the flowers from your lungs but with that also the memories of the love you have for this person. I added a lil twist, that there's this wall around your memories but this wall can be broken down when you spend too much time near the person you love(d). 
> 
> (This is way too sad and way too dramatic but I kinda think this is AU is very interesting. This is by far not my best work (lmao just no) but I wanted to post this before the new year.)

Yellow is a warm colour, a happy colour. Yellow is a colour that means _home_ and _winning_ , means _sun_ and _smiles_. Yellow is the colour of his blood, yellow is the colour of their club.

Now, yellow is also the colour of death.

Marco doesn't remember falling in love. He thinks most of the people don't because falling in love doesn't always mean love at first sight and hasty kisses in the rain, sometimes it's just a steady heartbeat beside him, a laugh that makes him feel warm, a glare that makes him cold. Love for Marco means silly training sessions and hours of playing FIFA together, it means a warm breath on his shoulder and a smile that lights up the whole room. Love for Marco is Jonas, but for Jonas love means plump lips and red shoes and someone that turns around when you call Erik. Love for Jonas doesn't mean Marco and he knows it, witnesses it every day again and again, until he starts to cough and there's yellow all over his mouth, a dead flower in his hand and a burning ache in his throat. Marco isn't all that surprised.

They're yellow, but there's always a bit of blood on them because coughing up a plant fucking hurts. They're yellow and look almost a bit beautiful, but they aren't, and Marco stuffs them deep into his jeans pocket every time he isn't able to swallow all of them down again. (They taste like ash and burn his throat even more, but he doesn't care, doesn't want anybody to see) Marco hates them like he loves Jonas, unhurried, comfortable, but deep, oh so deep. He hates them because he can't play football properly anymore, because he has to keep secrets or everyone will worry and he's already worried enough. He hates their colour especially, though, because he never imagined his death to be yellow.

He heard of it, of course he did. Hanahaki Disease, the disease of unrequited love, the tale of broken hearts. He heard people calling it a beautiful death and now he wants to punch them, all of them. The flowers look almost a bit beautiful, but Marco can't look at them, can't look at the yellow tinted with tiny drops of his own blood. There's nothing beautiful about dying. There's nothing beautiful about a broken heart.

Marco tries to keep this a secret, but he fails spectaculary. (He ran and ran and ran and even though it was only their practice, it felt like running away from Jonas, from the growing flowers in his chest. He ran and ran and ran and didn't stop and suddenly it was all too much and he collapsed on the floor, coughing up one sunflower after the other. People sprinted to him, Pierre being the first that arrived.

"Marco," he said and there was so much pity in his voice, an ocean of hurt that seemed to splash over Marco, drowned him and the yellow flowers until he couldn't see, couldn't feel anything than the deep pain that was so visible in Pierre's eyes and the burning pain in his heart or maybe his throat because it felt all the same, his heart ache and the ashy taste of sunflowers.)

~~

 

Pierre asks him and asks him, but Marco never answers. It's Jonas, is always on the tip of his tongue, but he knows that Pierre will blame him, and Marco does it too, sometimes, because after the hate, there was the anger and the white fury shooting through his body, blinding him, the yellow of the flowers the only other thing he could see. He doesn't want to feel jealous of Erik, but he can't help it the same way he can't help the flowers coming out of his mouth now. He isn't in training anymore and he isn't allowed to go out of his bed. Pierre is still by his side, and it would be awkward if it was anybody else than him because Marco isn't talking, too caught up in his swirling thoughts, and Pierre doesn't talk either.

"You can't die," he says, breaking through the thick layer of silence that almost comforted Marco for a bit, "I won't allow it" and he talks about surgery and the best clinic in the world for Hanahaki Disease, which is in Madrid and "You love Madrid, it won't be hard for you to stay there for a few weeks," and there's a fiery determination in his eyes, hope that burns brighter than his pain.

"It's not that easy," Marco says and his voice sounds weird, too low and rapsy to be considered anything else than weird. "I can't forget someone I'm able to play with." The burning hope in Pierre's eyes is fading with each and every word. "I can't forget him and I won't, I can't just erase him like that."

"What about me? Your family? This club, your friends, your fans, everyone! Aren't we important enough to stay alive? What does it matter to you - when you're dead you're not going to remember him either!" Pierre is raging now, almost screaming and it makes Marco cry until they're both sobbing and clinging to each other.

"I'll think about Madrid, alright?"

Pierre nods and sobs, his tears like a hot iron that someone pressed against his skin.

~~

 

Madrid welcomes them with cold sunshine and a doctor who looks strangely like Albus Dumbledore, just with shorter hair and a shorter beard.

"Mister Reus, it's nice to meet you," Marco raises an eyebrow as the doctor starts to talk in German, but he doesn't say anything. The old man doesn't either, just watches him carefully, intensively. "My name is Dr. Jahnke. Sit down, please," Dumbledore gestures to the old chairs in front of him. Marco tries to ignore the burning in his throat that always comes before he has to cough. "We have a lot to discuss."

Dr. Jahnke tells him about the procedure, explains the systems to him and after it, Marco's head is buzzing and tears are in his eyes and fuck, he wished Pierre would be here with him.

"You have to consider one last thing, though," the doctor says and he looks pitiful for the first time. "The operation basically builds a wall around your memories, so if the wall crumbles the memories are free again to make their way down your throat and make you cough up even more flowers than before. There's no going back if your wall somehow gets damaged, but it's extremely rare. Nothing will happen to you if you keep your distance."

Marco doesn't tell Dr. Jahnke that Jonas doesn't know yet, and will never know. Marco doesn't tell him that he'll go back to Dortmund and that Jonas will still be there. He can't bear to leave Dortmund too after all this. He can't bear the thought of going somewhere else than this city, losing the memories of Jonas will be like missing one half of his heart and taking Dortmund away from him would be the second.

Marco coughs and Dr. Jahnke plucks the yellow blossoms of his lips with steady, wrinkled fingers.

"Yours are yellow, then? Mine were red, you could never see the blood."

~~

 

Marco wakes up after the operation and only sees whites and greens and blacks around him. The walls, the floors, his bedsheets, everything is white apart from the uniform of the nurses and the place in his heart where he's supposed to remember the love of his life. A deep gaping black hole is there instead. He tries to chase the last glimpse of a smile, but there's bright black all around him and he falls asleep again.

The next time he opens his eyes, Auba's face his merely inches above his.

"You're awake! Thank god, how are you feeling?"

Empty, is what Marco wants to say. Empty and I don't even know why.

"I'm fine, just tired," is what he says. Auba looks at him like he doesn't believe it, but he doesn't say anything.

~~

 

Coming back to Dortmund feels wrong, somehow. Marco feels empty and the emptiness won't go away, not after hours of training nor after going out with Marcel and Robin. He knows that it has something to do with the surgery, and it feels so strange - that he can remember the ashy taste of death and the yellow flowers, the memories that still make him flinch whenever he's seeing something yellow, which happens quite often in this city, but that he isn't able to remark anything of the person he used to love. He doesn't even know who it was anymore.

So Marco tries to run more, and he runs from his flat to the park, to the forest, through the forest, to the Phönixsee and back. He never feels his legs waver and when he does, he ignores it and runs faster. He can just focus on his breathing, one in and one out, one leg forward, then the other one. It doesn't feel as empty as before when Marco runs, so he runs before practice and in practice and after practice.

Marco runs everyday, but he also runs away from his friends, even from his family. He runs because he can't look them in their faces, not in the worried ones of his teammates and his mother, and especially not in the sad eyes of Auba. Marco doesn't understand what he feels, he doesn't know what he feels.

He's just empty.

~~

 

Like every other thing Marco has ever planned in his entire life, his plan to run failed. Again. He remembers running away from someone when he coughed up the flowers, that he tried to run away from his broken heart and the disease. (And Marco is crumbling at training, again, after he runs one round too many, and he's laying on the ground, his face pressed into the scratchy, short grass. Jonas comes up to him and touches his shoulder, his face, worried warm eyes and a sad smile. Marco can't look him in the eye because they remind him of something - something he can't remember.

"Marco," Jonas voice is quiet. "What is happening to you?"

"I -," Marco says and that's it, nothing more comes out of his throat. Jonas sighs and helps him up, ignoring Tuchel and their medic team, instead he practically carries Marco all the way to the locker rooms all by himself.

"Talk to me," is what Jonas says, but Marco doesn't answer, so Jonas hugs him. It doesn't feel like Jonas' hugs used to feel, not warm, not comforting, he just feels empty. Or maybe Jonas' hugs always felt like this and Marco is messing up things? He doesn't know. He knows nothing anymore.

Jonas doesn't leave him alone after that. He comes to him after training and talks about nonsense, while Marco is sitting on his couch and trying to understand why the empty feeling is growing in his chest. He doesn't run anymore, and Auba's eyes aren't as worried as they were in the beginning.

The emptiness is still there, though. And isn't it strange that he feels nothing and still feels wrong?)

~~

 

First the flowers come.

Then the memories.

Marco pretends that he doesn't cry when he coughs up another yellow flower, but his eyes are wet and his throat is not only hurting because of the flowers, but also because of the sobs that wrecked his body. Marco pretends that he isn't glad when he can finally remember Jonas' smile in all its glory, can remember the feelings he used to have when Jonas smiled. The feelings he still has, always had, but were buried under a wall that wasn't strong enough to hold of his heart-break in.

~~

 

Marco is vomiting after two days and not able to go to practise anymore after three. He does nothing, this time. He just wants to remember, cherish every second of his memories with Jonas. It hurts so much - so, so much that he spent so much time with Jonas, but wasn't able to enjoy it like he should, like he would have if he didn't do the operation. He remembers the words of Dr. Jahnke. He knows he'll die. Marco is on the floor of his bathroom, vomiting again and again, disgusting yellow flowers and the bile of his stomach. He closes his eyes and sinks down on the wall. The cold tiles feel good against his too-warm skin, the cold hair that comes through the open window helps his ragged throat to breath.

Marco closes his eyes and sees Jonas' eyes. It's a good sight, he decides.

A sight so good, he never opens his eyes again.


End file.
